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5 signs that you should outsource your search marketing

Jan 23rd, 2015

Search marketing can be a veritable minefield if you lack the relevant knowhow. Between continually changing Google algorithms and fluctuating web trends, this increasingly technical discipline may leave your head in a spin. If any or all of the following signs apply to you, it may be time to bring in the experts to help you get to grips with search marketing

1) Not where you want to be in search rankings – and no idea why…

You’re no doubt well aware of the importance of performing well in search engine results pages (SERPs). This drives traffic to your site and gives your brand a boost. Falling way down on SERPs can be frustrating, especially if you’ve no idea why. Perhaps you’ve never been able to get sufficient exposure in this way, or maybe you were doing fine and then all of sudden your rankings plummeted.

If either of these problems applies to you, it could be time to outsource your search marketing. Experts will be able to analyse your strategy, discover any shortcomings and put an effective plan in place to get you the results you want and need.

2) Don’t know your algorithms from your anchor text

Search marketing has spawned an array of technical words and phrases. Sometimes, it can seem as though people are speaking a completely different language when they get into the specifics of search strategies.

Forming a coherent and effective marketing plan can be impossible without a clear understanding of everything from black hat SEO to reciprocal links and semantic clustering. This means that if you struggle to tell your algorithms from your anchor text and your SERPs from your search funnels, you might need to turn to the experts.

3) Too much to do and too little time

There’s no getting around the fact that search marketing takes time. Keeping up to date with all the latest trends and changes on the web, creating engaging content for your target audience, communicating with customers via social media – all these tasks require time and effort. If you’re too busy with other things and your search marketing is suffering as a result, it could be necessary to look for help.

4) Strung out staff

On a related point, if your in-house marketing team have too much on their plates, it may be time to outsource this element of your advertising. Strung out staff members can struggle to keep up with their tasks, and this can mean they take shortcuts or make mistakes.

Bringing in a third party to run your search marketing can help to lessen the pressure on your workers. It can also prove to be a more cost effective and flexible option than taking on new employees.

5) Strategy… what strategy?

If you don’t have a firm plan in place concerning your search marketing, something is amiss. Without a clear strategy, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll achieve your goals. For example, do you intend to focus on boosting your natural search engine rankings? Will you supplement your efforts by buying pay-per-click listings? Do you need to engage in backlink profile cleansing?

Without a clearly defined strategy, you could end up pouring money into search marketing without seeing very much in the way of results.

One of the major benefits of turning to a specialist third party is the fact these specialists will create a detailed plan complete with realistic timeline, projected ROI and more.

No need to go it alone

Given the significance of search marketing, it’s surprising how many firms are willing to try – and often fail – in this task by going it alone. If any of the five points outlined in this blog apply to you, now could be the time to change your approach and reach out to the experts.

Looking for help? Search marketing is at the heart of everything we do at Click. Peruse the resources in our SEO toolkit, contain online tools, downloadable cheat sheets and eBooks and more…